If I make art, I would like to get compensated by it. However, under market capitalism, my art has to sell well to make money, which means that I cannot make art out of pure volition, but have to adhere to what consumers like, which may not be in line with what I like. Plus, market capitalism/SnD opens up a whole other can of worms about copyright, piracy, and morality. With an LToV-based system for compensating for art, I will get paid based on how much I worked, rather than if consumers like it or not. In other words, I can allow people to copy and redistribute/remix it without worrying about a loss of customers. To quote George Lucas “[In the USA], you have to adhere to a very narrow line of commercialism”.
I just read the novel Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang which plays with this in the world building and has the characters deal with the topic as well. It’s unfortunately a bit liberal, especially considering the author is Chinese, but I found it quite thought provoking.
Absolutely, as a professional artist, it is a nightmare. I have to be willing to draw almost anything in order to keep my lights on and all the ideas I have that I want to create, I can’t, because they aren’t profitable, everything needs to be empty, vapid and crowd pleasing, not challenging and thought provoking (or at least, an attempt at that, it would be nice to try at least.)
While obviously capitalism sucks for art, it’s not clear to me that a LToV-based system would allow you to make the type of art you want to make without consideration of what the people who use the art will value.
I fundamentally agree.
There’s something to unpick in relation to the LtoV, though. Value is socially necessary labour time. Does this mean that other people in society would still need to want your art for it to have value according to the LtoV? Is this the theoretical basis for what you observe about needing consumers?
Value is socially necessary labour time.
Important point. I would say that every profession artist in any system would create things for people to see (or hear etc.) and take under consideration what they want to see. Unpopular artists were sidetracked and fired even in socialist states.
There was basically two ways to become a pro then - one was being scouted at amateur contests/exihibits/clubs etc and the second was graduating from an art school. Both involved making art that was popular and/or appreciated by state institutions.
Important point. I would say that every profession artist in any system would create things for people to see (or hear etc.) and take under consideration what they want to see. Unpopular artists were sidetracked and fired even in socialist states.
Exactly, the artist must serve the people. To quote Sergei Prokofiev: “Can the true artist stand aloof from life and confine his art within the narrow bounds of subjective emotion? Or should he not rather be where he is needed most, where his words, his music, and his chisel can help people live a better, finer life?”
All inteligentsia must serve the people.
what does “socially necessary” mean?
Socially necessary in terms of manual labour pretty much means the average time taken to complete a labour. If the industry standard is that it takes 10 hours to make a coat but you are newbie at it and take 40 hours to make coat, your coat does not have not have more value because you had to invest more time into it. It is used to avoid debunked pitfalls like the mud pie argument.
As art is something which is not mass produced and inturn unique, is it more valuable according to LTV or is it outside the scope of LTV?
For professional artist, deadlines mostly. This don’t change in socialism.
My ideal for art and compensation would involve de-rockstaring all art and emphasizing the value of local art. I would want everyone to be an artist and I would give people more hours in the week to do art than to do work.
Edit: If you can imagine how right now we work 9-5 monday to friday, I would organize society with soft and structural incentives so that one would have organized community art projects happening 1/3rd of the day, centrazlied labour 1/3rd, free time 1/3rd with the organized community art projects being large scale local/state projects that workshop all kinds of art, sport would also be a viable choice.
All barriers to entry would be nill and it would demystify all art and produce works of beauty I bet, I think it should be a fundemental part of any society as it is such a huge part of the human expeirence, sometimes I think that reality is just a way for aliens outside our existance to generate art for there enjoyment, lets feed the machine.
everyone in favor of making Ghost of Faso the leader of the United Socialist States of America?
